The Land of Raj------Jaipur Rajasthan

Took the overnight (sleeper) train from Varanasi to Jaipur Rajasthan, a mere 17 1/2 hours. Pretty dang comfy  until morning came and the bunks turned into seats and the classic Indian squeeze plan started. Luckily it was only 5 hours of being squeezed into the bench seat with 3 others(or 4,or 5).....

Jaipur....also known as the "Pink City"...The old
town was painted pink to impressive a British
dignitary....If it looks a little orange...it's either a
paint chip from Home Depot looked a little  more
pink or this color was on sale...7 square km of
town painted like this...

The colors of the temples.......color powders to
sprinkle on everything....

Palaces on the mountains, palaces in the city...
lets put a palace on the lake......Jai Mahal was
this one's name, the pool wasn't big enough
at the old palace for the queen, so.........

Plenty of Camel parking

Amber Fort....just the biggest of the palaces

Main elephant gate.....

The walls on the ridges surrounding the palace...
Thought we were in China.

The cauldron in the foreground is one of 2 in the palace
 galley I guess they cooked for big crowds.....

Becky still couldn't find the shower,
but she did find a marble  tub, now
I'm looking for the faucet.

Traffic jam on the commute to the front gate

The beautiful doors into the Palace of the Winds (Hawa Mahal), This palace was in the Pink City and  originally housed the women of one of the Maharajas. They had dozens of windows to look down on the city streets

Pretty fun place to explore with somebody looking out most of the time.

This guy was keeping an eye on me and grandma an eye on him.........

Becky found that she didn't like the smallness of the whole thing.... and where is the door down to the street and  why do I have to cover my head and who does this Maharaja guy think he is...............

Saw this doorman with the turban and the great
muttonchops, he saw me taking his photo, but
instead of  charging me rupees for the photo...

He unwrapped his mustache from around his ears and held it out for me
to admire....The Rajasthanis love their mustaches........

Next to the Palace of the Winds was an
Observatory that was quite the
"Salvador Dali Park" Everything that is built
into a sextant was built huge in this
several acre park....."Go Big"

Each sign of the Horoscope was represented
and built to line up on that constellation  at
it's appropriate time of the night
...Here's Becky in Scorpio.....

Marble elephants, turbans and mustaches...what more could you ask for...
unfortunately they made Becky keep her eyes closed.

Excess...I think so..2 of these solid silver urns were
made to carry Ganges water to England when
the Maharaja went to visit....Nice touch

Cool doors, doorways and turbans, that was what
the City Palace was all about.

Each entryway was different 

This guy had the turban, mustache and  played
a rawanhatha
during our lunch at the Palace.

After a few days of palaces and incredible textiles
it was time to hit the desert and maybe a few camels
Off to Pushkar Rajasthan for us.......